Friday, August 12, 2016

Any Australian's preferable to a Kiwi - even Kevin Rudd

(First published in The Spectator Australia, August 6.)

Anyone who has observed the relationship between Australia
and New Zealand over many years is forced to an inescapable conclusion. Some
Australians don’t like the idea that New Zealanders can do anything very well,
and positively recoil from the thought that they can do anything better than Australia
can. This was the only plausible explanation for the extraordinary contortions
over whether the Australian government should back Kevin Rudd in his belated
bid for the job of United Nations Secretary-General ahead of New Zealand’s
Helen Clark.

For all the hollow sentimental rhetoric spouted every Anzac
Day about the closeness of the trans-Tasman bond, the truth is that at the
political level, New Zealand is generally regarded as an irritating smaller
sibling whose interests are considered only when it suits Canberra to do so.
It’s hard to escape the feeling that in the eyes of some high-powered
Australian political players, any Australian – even the discredited Mr Rudd –
would be preferable to a Kiwi.

Mr Rudd’s now-aborted candidacy had all the hallmarks of a
spoiler action that was likely to obliterate whatever chance Miss Clark might
have had of securing the big job. It was a desperate play by a bored,
under-engaged man anxious to amount to something again.

The irony is that the appointment was unlikely to go to
anyone from the Anglo world anyway, since it’s the UN custom to rotate the job
on a geographical basis, and it’s generally considered the turn of Eastern Europe. Besides,
conventional wisdom holds that the big powers which control the UN Security
Council prefer to appoint someone malleable, which Clark is not.

In a recent straw poll, the former Labour Prime Minister of
New Zealand ranked only sixth of the 12
contenders. Toss in an Australian candidate to muddy the waters, and she
wouldn’t have a bolter’s chance.

That Mr Rudd threw his hat into the ring in the first place
was perhaps no surprise. After all, a man with an Olympian intellect – to say
nothing of an ego the size of the Simpson Desert – needs a suitably formidable challenge.
What was surprising was the breadth
of political support for his bid, from senior figures in the coalition
government as well as former colleagues from the party which found him
intolerable as its leader.

It didn’t seem to matter that Mr Rudd had been an abject
failure as Australian prime minister, once jettisoned by his own MPs and later
emphatically rejected by Australian voters fed up with his toxic and
dysfunctional government.

Neither did it seem to matter that even people on Mr Rudd’s
own side (notionally, at least) ridiculed his conceit in thinking he was
competent to take over one of the most powerful jobs in international politics.
Kristina Keneally, former Labor Premier of New South Wales, called him a psychopathic
narcissist and said her labrador dog would do a better job as Secretary-General
– a putdown even more stinging than Queensland Senator James McGrath’s remark
that he wouldn’t trust Mr Rudd to operate a toaster.

In the end, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made what was
described as a captain’s call in announcing the government would not support Mr
Rudd’s nomination. Mr Turnbull was as
blunt as the laws of political propriety permit in explaining why he had made
the decision, simply saying that Mr Rudd was not suitable for the job.

Given Mr Rudd’s erratic history of rudeness, bad temper and
general megalomaniacal behaviour, it’s possible that as many Labour voters as
coalition supporters agreed. Certainly Mr Rudd’s petulant response to Mr
Turnbull’s decision confirms that the Prime Minister made the right call. But
what remains unexplained is why so many high-profile figures – including Liberal
Party deputy leader Julia Bishop, ambassador to the US Joe Hockey, former Labor
Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans and former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson
– argued in Mr Rudd’s favour.

Judging by the public comments of Mr Rudd’s supporters, the
main consideration seemed not so much his competence for the job as the belief
that Australia should be seen as supporting an Australian candidate. This view
was articulated by, among others, Richard Woolcott, a former Australian
ambassador to the UN. “If an Australian decides to stand I think the Australian
government should support that Australian,” Woolcott was quoted as saying.

It didn't seem to matter that there was already a nominee
from this part of the world, and one who has the necessary credentials. Miss Clark
is respected even by her former political opponents in New Zealand as a woman
of formidable ability and proven competence in international affairs. She was a
three-term Prime Minister and since 2009 has held the third-highest job in the
UN – that of administrator of the UN Development Programme. But she happens to
be a New Zealander, and it’s hard to escape the feeling that it would be seen
as a blow to Australian pride if a prestigious international job went to a Kiwi
when there was an Australian available.

The relationship between the two countries is complex.
There’s a lot of genuine affection, but also an undeniable rivalry. New
Zealanders are more keenly aware of this than Australians, because Australia is
able to ignore New Zealand in a way that isn’t possible in reverse.

This is partly determined by geographical location. New
Zealand is an insignificant presence somewhere over Australia’s shoulder, like
a more remote Tasmania. But when New Zealand looks out to the world, the first
thing it sees is Australia.

Yet for all its size and pretensions to global importance, Australia doesn’t like being upstaged
by its smaller bro’. Perhaps that’s why Australian politicians who once
regarded Mr Rudd as their bitter enemy, and who rightly highlighted his
personal failings, suddenly began singing his praises.

Mr Rudd hadn’t magically metamorphosed into a reincarnation of
Nelson Mandela or John F Kennedy, so what had changed? The answer could only be
that if someone from Down Under was going to take over the top post in the UN,
then it should be an Australian rather than a Kiwi.

Perhaps the most telling fact was that ordinary Australians
recognised Mr Rudd’s unsuitability even if the political elites didn’t. An
April poll showed that Miss Clark’s candidacy was supported by more than twice
as many Australians as Mr Rudd’s, and even Labor voters preferred Clark by a
narrow margin. Perhaps that’s what people mean when they talk about the wisdom
of crowds.

About Me

I am a freelance journalist and columnist living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. In the presence of Greenies I like to boast that I walk to work each day - I've paced it out and it's about 15 metres. I write about all sorts of stuff: politics, the media, music, wine, films, cycling and anything else that piques my interest - even sport, though I admit I don't have the intuitive understanding of sport that most New Zealand males absorb as if by osmosis. I'm a former musician (bass and guitar) with a lifelong love of music that led me to write my book 'A Road Tour of American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis', published by Bateman NZ in July 2016. I've been in journalism for more than 40 years and like many journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things and probably not enough about anything. I have never won any journalism awards.